


Touch Starved

by QueenOfTheQuill



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Gen, It's all over, Platonic Cuddling, i swear i didn't do it on purpose, look these boys can make contact with an extra person now, luke/reggie/julie if you squint, no beta we die like the band, pre-Juke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29875554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheQuill/pseuds/QueenOfTheQuill
Summary: After Julie is able to touch the members of the band, there's only one option: platonic cuddles for all.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina, Julie Molina & Luke Patterson, Julie Molina & Reggie Peters
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	1. Reggie

**Author's Note:**

> I fell headfirst into this fandom and just finished my second one-day marathon of the series, so you know what that means! Fic time! No beta and barely edited, I'm sure it's fine.

“Juliiiiiiieeeee.”

Julie glanced up from where she was doing her homework on the studio couch just in time to see Reggie phase through the door with a pouty look on his face.

“What’s up, Reg? I thought you were going to go see the puppies at the shelter?”

He plopped on the couch next to her, still pouting. “Well yeah, I was, but then I poofed on the outside of the shelter, because dogs are supposed to be sensitive to ghost stuff, right? They always are in the horror movies. And I didn’t want to scare any of the dogs. But then there was this _really_ cool street performer. She was doing this totally rad dance with like a ribbony costume and it kept fluttering all over and it was so cool so I stopped to watch. And then, when I was watching her, the volunteers came to take all the puppies out for walks and I missed them, so I don’t know where they went.”

Julie stuffed a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Halfway through his rant, Reggie had started sliding dramatically down the couch, so now he was slumped with his butt on the edge of the couch and his head thrown back so he could stare mournfully at the ceiling.

Controlling herself, she lowered her hand. “Sorry Reggie. Maybe you can go back in a few hours? They’re bound to be back soon. I mean, puppies can’t walk _that_ long.”

He shook his head. “Nah, I promised Alex I’d work on the background vocals with him while you’re eating dinner with Ray and Carlos.”

Julie wrinkled her nose. “Speaking of. I told Dad I’d have this done in time to help him with dinner, but I’m stuck. I hate math.”

Reggie’s face brightened and he rolled over to her side. “Really? What are you working on? Math was my best subject, and it can’t have changed that much, right?”

A little startled by the fact that Reggie was now pressed up along her whole side, it took Julie a second to answer. “Wh-, oh, it’s algebra two. We’re in the middle of polynomial stuff and I keep getting turned around.” She tilted her textbook and notebook so he could see the problems she was working on and he leaned even further into her space to get a better look.

After a second, his expression brightened. “Oh, you just have to keep track of which variables have exponents on them. There’s a couple times you tripped yourself up, here and here—” he slung an arm around her to point at a few half-erased problems in her notebook, “—’cause these numbers don’t have the exact same variable attached. See, this one is _x^_ _2_ times _y_ and _this_ one is _x_ times _y^_ _2_.” He grinned at her triumphantly.

Turning her attention to her notebook, Julie frowned, then brightened. “Oh, wow, I didn’t even realize I was doing that. Thanks Reg!” She leaned over to give him a quick hug, then bent over her notebook with renewed vigor. Reggie propped his chin on her shoulder and from the way his eyes flickered across the page and he kept writing something in the air with the hand that wasn’t around her shoulders, Julie suspected he was working ahead of her and trying to solve all the problems on the page.

“Do you wanna borrow my book when I’m not using it?” she asked while she was flipping to the back to check her answers. “It’s just, you actually seem to like this stuff, way more than I do.”

Reggie brightened. “Can I? I can copy some problems out of it and then do them while you’re at school, and then it’ll be almost like we’re going to school together!”

His enthusiasm brought a small smile to her face. “Yeah, Brain Boy. I’m not gonna stop you from doing math for fun, even if I do think you’re a complete weirdo.”

“Thanks Jules!” He gave her an enthusiastic hug with the arm already around her, then froze as he seemed to remember the position they’d been in for the last 45 minutes, letting Julie go and scooting over. “Oh crap. Alex is always after me about remembering about personal space, and then I totally forgot, I’m so sorry Julie!”

Feeling the cold air hit her where Reggie had been leaning for the better part of an hour, Julie laughed and held out her arm. “I don’t mind, Reg. I was a little startled at first, but I don’t mind cuddling. Honestly, I would have expected all of you to be cuddly, seeing how much you guys hug and stuff.”

Reggie slid happily back into his place against his side, wiggling to get himself situated as she giggled. “Oh, they are,” he said cheerfully. “Alex is just panicking about personal boundaries and respect and Luke thinks he’s being subtle with his crush.”

Julie’s eyes widened. “Luke’s being subtle with his _what now_ Reginald?”

“Uuuuuuhhhh!” Reggie’s voice was several octaves higher than before and she could feel him hiding his face in her hair. “Nothing, don’t worry about it! Do you have any movies that you want to watch before dinner, since you have extra time?”

Julie rolled her eyes and reached out to set up her laptop on the table. “Don’t think you’re getting out of it that easily, mister. But yeah, I’ve been trying to make time to rewatch The Parent Trap for ages, so I guess you’re off the hook for now. We are _not_ talking over this beautiful chaos.”

“Ooooh, what kind of chaos?” 

Settling back into the couch and Reggie’s side, Julie smirked. “You’re just going to have to wait and find out, Brain Boy. You’re gonna love it.”

An hour and a half later, Alex and Luke poofed outside the garage, both looking for Reggie. From inside, they heard Julie’s voice saying, “No, it’s _jump, bump, jump, bump, pause, step._ You gotta pause or the whole thing gets thrown off.”

“I got it this time, Jules, promise.”

“Uh,” said Luke as the pair stepped through the garage doors. “What are you guys up to?” Julie and Reggie jumped apart from each other, Reggie shoving his hands behind his back.

“Nothing!” they said in unison, before Julie glanced over at Reggie.

“Reg, you’re not even holding anything, why’d you put your hands behind your back?”

“I’m being casual! This is a completely casual pose!”

“...Right,” says Alex, who clearly didn’t believe them at all. “Julie, your dad’s starting to look for you, it’s nearly 5:30.”

“Shoot, thanks Alex! And thanks for the help with my homework Reggie, feel free to grab my textbook whenever I’m not using it. We can finish the movie later.” Julie grabbed her backpack and headed for the house, grinning as she heard Luke and Alex burst into questions behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reggie is a very intelligent dumbass and I will stand by that. You can pry Good At Math Reggie from my cold, dead hands. And yes, that is Reggie and Julie practicing Annie and Martin‘s secret handshake. What, did you think Reggie _wasn’t_ going to want to learn it?


	2. Alex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no chill, so here's the second chapter in less than 24 hours.

Alex was pacing. That wasn’t really unusual, but it  _ was _ distracting when Julie was trying to rework the piano section of their newest song. Luke had gotten a little enthusiastic while he was scribbling down notes on what he wanted the sound to be, which meant they were only half legible on the best of days. With Alex taking his distracting turn on the carpet catwalk, they were basically indecipherable.

“Dude,” Julie finally burst out, startling Alex mid-turn. “You’re going to wear a hole through the carpet and you aren’t even  _ corporeal _ . If you don’t sit down, I think we’re gonna find out if ghosts can pull a muscle.”

“Sorry Julie.” He flopped down on the ground in front of the couch, next to her left leg. As soon as he sat down, he started drumming on his legs with his fingers.

“Alright, what’s up?” Julie asked, throwing down her pencil. “You’re acting like I imagine Reggie would if we gave him three cups of coffee.”

“Oh, Reggie always mellowed out with caffeine, actually,” Alex said, almost absentmindedly.

“Huh. Don’t change the subject.”

“I wasn’t trying to- ok. Anyway, I’m just worried about Willie. I know he hasn’t told me everything that happened when he was at the club, but I don’t know how to get him to  _ talk _ to me and now I think he’s avoiding me instead of talking about it, but I can’t tell if that’s him trying to cope or what and-”

“Woah!” Julie threw her hands up in a ‘slow down’ motion. “Take a deep breath Lexie.” He listened, despite the fact that both of them knew he didn’t need to breathe. “Just… breathe for a second. I know you want to support Willie, we all do. But it’s also not your job to be his therapist. He might just need a little space and a reminder that you’re there whenever he’s ready to talk.”

“I- Yeah, you’re right.”

“I usually am,” she told him smuggly.

Alex shoved his shoulder against her knee, smiling. “Careful, there’s only room for one giant head in this band and I think Luke’s got that position covered.”

“I’ll fight him for it.”

“I’m betting on you. Think we could get Flynn to organize a whole event around it?”

Julie laughed. “Probably. I can see the posters now. Julie and the Phantoms: Band Brawl! There’s an exclamation point. I hope you could hear it.”

Nodding solemnly, Alex leaned a little closer, so his shoulder was pressed gently against her knee. “Obviously. You’re a woman of taste.”

“ _ Someone _ in this band has to be.”

“Hey! Our styles are  _ vintage _ . It’s a thing!”

“Sure it is hon,” Julie told him, grinning and patting him on the head. “Now can you decode Luke’s handwriting? Because this could say ‘get bright’ or ‘start fight’ and it’s Luke, so I’m honestly not sure which one it is.”

As Alex leaned forward to take a look at the notes, Julie just kinda… left her hand on his shoulder. If Reggie was right, Alex liked touch, but was overthinking initiating with Julie. “This good?” she asked and he hummed, not taking his eyes off the notes. She leaned forward to look over his shoulder as Alex started translating Luke’s scribbles.

“Ooooh, that makes a lot more sense.”

“Mm?” Alex hummed. “What? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I’m paying attention.”

Giving him a Look, Julie suddenly realized that her hand had traced an absentminded pattern up into Alex’s hair and she was petting it like she used to when Carlos had a nightmare and crawled into bed with her instead of their parents.

“Sorry! I can stop if you want me to.”

“No! Uh, I mean,” Alex half ducked his head, blushing. “No, it feels nice. You don’t have to stop if you don’t want to.”

Julie looked him over to make sure he wasn’t just agreeing to make her feel better and noticed that Alex hadn’t been drumming his fingers or bouncing his leg for at least the last few minutes. “Ok, cool,” she said with a grin, turning back to the sheet music and making a few additions, sliding her free hand through Alex’s hair as she worked.

Without thinking about it much, Julie started humming the piano line from one of her mom’s older songs, one she’d written before Julie was even born.

“Hmmm, sounds killer,” Alex told her, resting his head on her leg almost sleepily. Julie had to suppress a giggle. She was pretty sure he’d be purring like a cat if he could be. “Should work that into one of our songs.”

Julie paused her writing, glancing down at where Alex’s head was laying in her lap. “You know. I think you’re right.”

“Usually am.” Julie didn’t even need to see Alex’s face to imagine his smug grin. She tugged lightly on his hair in retaliation, before scratching her nails lightly through his scalp. With her right hand, Julie started working her mom’s old melody through the bridge of their new song.

Alex  _ was _ right. This song was going to be killer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case I did not make this abundantly clear by the tags and comparing Alex to Carlos, this is purely platonic. This band is just touchy-feely all around and we love that for them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Procrastinating doing actual, paying work with a rapidly approaching due date? On MY fanfiction account? It's more likely than you think!
> 
> We are fudging dates very slightly because when I was writing this, I thought the band died in summer of ‘96. Turns out they died in ‘95, about six months before Jumanji came out. But in my reality, Jumanji got released in ‘94, because I said so and also because I don’t want to find a different movie.

Alex had left a while ago, saying something about screaming in museums with Willie, so it was just Luke, Julie, and Reggie for movie night, curled up on her bed with the 2017 Jumanji movie playing on her laptop. Apparently, the boys had seen Jumanji in theaters and Luke had been ecstatic to hear that there was a sequel. They could have had their movie night in the garage, but her dad was already in bed, prepping for an early shoot tomorrow, and Julie was trading being a little quieter for extra comfort.

Which was how she ended up with one boy pressed into either side of her and a laptop on her legs. Luke had been a little hesitant first, but after seeing Reggie make himself right at home under Julie’s left arm, he’d relaxed enough to take her right.

Despite the action-packed movie, Reggie had dropped off about half an hour ago. Julie wasn’t entirely sure how ghost sleeping worked, but it seemed more like  _ really _ dedicated zoning out. She was just glad Reggie had remembered to close his eyes this time. It seemed to be a 50/50 shot that she’d walk into the garage to see Reggie staring blankly at the wall at this point.

That just left her and Luke, watching as Martha and Bethany had their heart-to-heart and character growth.

“Remind me to show you all School of Rock later,” she whispered to Luke. “Jack Black nails it as the lead.” Hearing a slight sniffle, she glanced down to see that instead of listening to her, Luke was staring at the screen with red eyes. “Are you  _ crying? _ ”

“They’re learning so much from each other!” Luke defended quietly. “It’s touching!”

“And you two call Alex the emotional one,” Julie whispered with a grin, turning her attention back to the movie.

Her concentration slightly broken now, Julie realized how  _ heavy _ these two were, especially since they were supposed to be made of air. She’d been sitting with her arms up around their shoulders for a while now and her arms really weren’t happy with her. Wincing, she tried to subtly readjust, trying not to disturb either Luke or Reggie.

It was a lost cause. As soon as Julie started shifting, Luke leaned forward to pause the movie. “You good?”

“Yeah, I just need to move around a little. Keep watching the movie, I’ll be fine.” She shifted Reggie slightly on her shoulder, lowering her arm from around Luke’s shoulder to behind his back. Then tucking it close to her side. Then wiggling a little, trying to get comfortable.

“Jules, c’mon, you’re not comfortable. Put Reg down and sit like you wanna.”

“What if he wakes up?” she hissed.

Luke leveled her with a flat stare. “Dude, Alex once did the entire drum solo from Tom Sawyer while Reggie was asleep on the studio couch and he didn’t even flinch.”

Julie huffed. Ok, so Reggie would be fine. She was still careful as she lowered him onto her pillow. Turning back to Luke, she hesitated.  _ Luke thinks he’s being subtle with his crush _ echoed in her head. Well. Maybe she’d just… go for it then. Yeah.

Still self conscious, Julie tucked herself into Luke’s side, throwing an arm over his hips. Yep. Totally casual. “This ok?” she asked.

“Rad,” Luke answered, sounding a little choked. Julie hid a grin as she stretched her arm out to hit play before returning it to his lap.

Something sure was happening on the movie screen, but Julie had already seen Jumanji with Flynn and it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the way Luke had taken nearly the entire sides off this particular shirt, along with the sleeves. If she stretched her fingers up just a little…

Luke jumped and Julie snatched her hand back. “Sorry,” she squeaked. “I’ll just-” She started to roll away, but Luke caught her wrist.

“No, it’s fine, I just wasn’t expecting it. Lay however you’re comfortable. It’s chill.”

So Julie settled back into his side, returning her hand to his hip. When they had both relaxed again, her hand ghosted back up to where the skin of his side peeked through the hole in his top. This time, he seemed to be expecting it and just shivered when her fingertips brushed lightly against the skin there.

Staring blankly at the laptop screen, Julie focused on running her fingertips up and down Luke’s sides. The longer she did it, the more he seemed to melt into her touch. 

At least, until her fingers strayed a little too high and Luke spasmed like he’d been electrocuted.

“Sorry, sorry, are you ok!”

“Yeah, perfectly fine, why do you ask!” Julie narrowed her eyes at Luke’s high pitch, then suddenly grinned in delight.

“Luuuuuke. Are you ticklish?”

He scoffed. “What? Me? No, of course not! Totally not ticklish.”

Julie got up on her knees, still grinning. “Y’know, you three are even worse liars than me, and given the  _ one _ time I lied to Flynn, I cracked in like 6 seconds, that’s saying something.”

Luke leaned a little farther away. “Julie? Julie don’t-”

She lunged, going right for the ticklish spot again. Letting out a yelp, Luke tried to wiggle away from her, but she had a younger brother. Julie followed him, laughing, as Luke flailed all over the bed.

Reggie could sleep through a lot of things. Apparently getting kicked in the ribs by the band’s lead guitarist wasn’t one of them.

When Luke’s foot connected, Reggie woke up with a gasp, flailing and falling off the bed. Luke and Julie immediately flopped on their stomachs to peer over the edge of the mattress at him.

“Sorry bro, you ok?” Luke asked as Reggie blinked up at them.

“Yeah. Did I miss the rest of the movie?”

Julie shrugged. “Yeah, but we weren’t watching the last bit of it anyway, so neither of you knows how it ends.”

“Weren’t watching the last…” Reggie trailed off, flicking his eyes between the two of them. Julie immediately felt heat rush into her cheeks.

“Reggie, did you know Luke is ticklish?” she asked a little bit too loudly. “Because he is. Very ticklish. High up on his side. Very movie-distracting.”

Reggie brightened. “Oh yeah, Alex found that one in seventh grade. He’s also ticklish behind his knees, but that one’s harder with jeans on.”

“Reg!” Luke gasped in a tone of ultimate betrayal. “Dude, you’re supposed to be on my side! Don’t give information away to the enemy!”

“Oh, so I’m the enemy now?” asked Julie, turning to Luke at the same time Reggie’s grin widened and he said, “Who said Julie was my enemy?” Without looking, she held her hand out for a high five, which Reggie gave her from the floor.

“Nuh uh.” Luke scrambled back. “Two on one isn’t fair, I want my lawyer.”

“He’s at the museum, screaming with his boyfriend,” Julie told him, smiling sweetly.

Luke rolled his eyes. “Typical.” He caught a glance of the clock on Julie’s desk. “Hey, it’s late. You should probably get some sleep. Apparently, school is still important to you or something.” He grinned and ducked the pillow Julie threw at him.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I know Reggie’s just going back to the garage to copy problems out of my math book. You’re surrounded by nerds.”

“Yeah, but you’re  _ my _ nerds,” Luke said with a grin as he helped Reggie off the ground.

“Awwww, Jules, I think he likes us!” Reggie stage whispered to Julie, who giggled.

“Alright you losers, get out of my room. I’ll see you tomorrow after school for practice.”

“Good night!” the boys chorused before vanishing from her room. As Julie shut off the lights and settled down to sleep, she couldn’t help grinning. She foresaw a lot more cuddles in her future.


End file.
